acting against the Khaiem, but thank you for your time, Athai-cha. I
will have a letter sewn and sealed for you by morning."
After the envoy had left, Otah sank into a chair and pressed the heels
of his hands to his temples. Around him, the palace was quiet. He
counted fifty breaths, then rose again, closed and latched the door, and
turned hack to the apparently empty room.
"Well?" he asked, and one of the panels in the corner swung open,
exposing a tiny hidden chamber brilliantly designed for eavesdropping.
The man who sat in the listener's chair seemed both at ease and out of
place. At ease because it was Sinja's nature to take the world lightly,
and out of place because his suntanned skin and rough, stained leathers
made him seem like a gardener on a chair of deep red velvet and silver
pins fit for the head of a merchant house or a member of the utkhaiem.
He rose and closed the panel behind him.
"He seems a decent man," Sinja said. "I wouldn't want him on my side of
a fight, though. Overconfident."
"I'm hoping it won't come to that," Otah said.
"For a man who's convinced the world he's bent on war, you're a bit
squeamish about violence."
Otah chuckled.
"I think sending the Dai-kvo his messenger's head might not be the most
convincing argument for my commitment to peace," he said.
"Excellent point," Sinja agreed as he poured himself a bowl of wine.
"But then you are training men to fight. It's a hard thing to preach
peace and stability and also pay men to think what's the best way to
disembowel someone with a spear."
"I know it," Otah said, his voice dark as wet slate. "Gods. You'd think
having total power over a city would give you more options, wouldn't you?"
Otah sipped the wine. It was rich and astringent and fragrant of late
summer, and it swirled in the bowl like a dark river. He felt old.
Fourteen years he'd spent trying to be what Machi needed him to
besteward, manager, ruler, half-god, fuel for the gossip and backbiting
of the court. Most of the time, he did well enough, but then something
like this would happen, and he would be sure again that the work was
beyond him.
"You could disband it," Sinja said. "It's not as though you need the
extra trade."
"It's not about getting more silver," Otah said.
"Then what's it about? You aren't actually planning to invade Cetani,
are you? Because I don't think that's a good idea."
Otah coughed out a laugh.
"It's about being ready," he said.
"Ready?"
"Every generation finds it harder to bind fresh andat. Every one that
slips away becomes more difficult to capture. It can't go on forever.
There will come a time that the poets fail, and we have to rely on
something else."
"So," Sinja said. "You're starting a militia so that someday, genera-
bons from now, when some Dai-kvo that hasn't been born yet doesn't